Hanna Burke performs Why Is Everyone Laughing? at the New York City venue.

Hanna Burke will perform Why Is Everyone Laughing? at the New York venue.

The Tony Awards Administration Committee announced May 26 the Nominating Committee for the 2015-2016 Broadway season.

The Gallery Players production of The Baker's Wife, the Stephen Schwartz-Joseph Stein musical best known for producing the driving ballad "Meadowlark," begins performances March 7 in Brooklyn. The staging marks the first professional NYC run of the revised version of the musical.

Brooklyn's Gallery Players has announced casting for The Baker's Wife, the Stephen Schwartz-Joseph Stein musical best known for producing the driving ballad "Meadowlark," which will play a limited run this March.

Pulitzer Prize finalist Stephen Karam brings his new comedy-drama The Humans to Off-Broadway's Roundabout's Theatre beginning Sept. 30, helmed by Wicked Tony winner Joe Mantello. The Manhattan-set play takes place during a family Thanksgiving dinner.

Lauren Klein and Arian Moayed have joined the cast of Pulitzer Prize finalist Stephen Karam's newest play, The Humans, which will make its New York debut Off-Broadway this fall.

Complete casting has been announced for Stratford Festival's 2015 season, which includes 13 productions that focus on "eureka moments."

Meet the first-nighters at the Broadway opening — and long-awaited Broadway bow — of Jeanine Tesori and Brian Crawley's Violet. Sutton Foster, Joshua Henry and Colin Donnell were there — and so was Playbill.

Meet the first-nighters at the Broadway opening — and long-awaited Broadway bow — of Jeanine Tesori and Brian Crawley's Violet. Sutton Foster, Joshua Henry and Colin Donnell were there — and so was Playbill.

Plus: Opera and Broadway veteran Zachary James will celebrate female composers in an upcoming visual album.

The season will also include Eugene Onegin, Così fan tute, La Bohème, and Otello.

Chamberlin plays Sheldon Saperstein in the screen adaptation of the musical, which arrives on Netflix December 11.

DIVAS SALUTE DAVID ZIPPEL
Randy Graff is the epitome of the maxim "less is more." Graff is not a showy performer. She doesn't strut around the stage or gesticulate wildly. She simply stands, sings and beguiles. In fact, two of the highlights of All Girl Band: The Songs of David Zippel, which I caught this past Monday evening at the Public Theater's Joe's Pub, were Graff's renditions of "How Can I Win" and "You Can Always Count On Me." It's not surprising that her version of City of Angels' "You Can Always Count On Me" was flawlessly delivered with measured doses of comic sarcasm (okay, she flubbed a lyric, but it hardly mattered), for she did win a Tony for her role in that musical. However, what was unexpected was her simple, yet affecting version of The Goodbye Girl's "How Can I Win." I've always enjoyed the Hamlisch/Zippel score for that ill fated musical (it was the book that needed work), and Graff managed to bring that sweet song to life, adding a few vocal inflections and slides that worked wonderfully. I'd love her to record that song; in fact, it would be great if the entire evening of Zippel tunes were recorded.

DIVAS SALUTE DAVID ZIPPEL
Randy Graff is the epitome of the maxim "less is more." Graff is not a showy performer. She doesn't strut around the stage or gesticulate wildly. She simply stands, sings and beguiles. In fact, two of the highlights of All Girl Band: The Songs of David Zippel, which I caught this past Monday evening at the Public Theater's Joe's Pub, were Graff's renditions of "How Can I Win" and "You Can Always Count On Me." It's not surprising that her version of City of Angels' "You Can Always Count On Me" was flawlessly delivered with measured doses of comic sarcasm (okay, she flubbed a lyric, but it hardly mattered), for she did win a Tony for her role in that musical. However, what was unexpected was her simple, yet affecting version of The Goodbye Girl's "How Can I Win." I've always enjoyed the Hamlisch/Zippel score for that ill fated musical (it was the book that needed work), and Graff managed to bring that sweet song to life, adding a few vocal inflections and slides that worked wonderfully. I'd love her to record that song; in fact, it would be great if the entire evening of Zippel tunes were recorded.

Hello, diva lovers. I'd like to dedicate today's column to one of the most gifted comedic actresses of her time, Madeline Kahn, who lost her battle with ovarian cancer last week. Kahn, who received a Tony Award for her riotous portrayal of Dr. Gorgeous Teitelbaum in Wendy Wasserstein's The Sisters Rosensweig, was equally at home on the stage or on screen, earning Tony nominations for her work in In the Boom Boom Room, On the Twentieth Century and Born Yesterday while meriting Academy Award nominations for such screen roles as "Blazing Saddles" and "Paper Moon." Though difficult to choose from her eclectic array of characters, I think my favorite Kahn performance was in the aforementioned "Paper Moon" as the good-bone-structured Trixie Delight, opposite the father-and-daughter team of Ryan and Tatum O'Neill. The operatically-trained performer had the ability to make you laugh with a simple inflection of the voice, and she could also move you in both song and the spoken word. This unique, multi-talented actress will be much missed. In lieu of flowers, Kahn's family asks that donations be made to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (One Penn Plaza, Suite 1610, New York, NY 10001).